


The Wise Men of Gotham

by jerseydevious



Category: Batman (Comics)
Genre: Blood and Gore, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, Gen, Not Canon Compliant, the joe chill of good writing declared me an enemy of the state and murdered me at quiznos
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-28
Updated: 2017-10-28
Packaged: 2019-01-25 17:02:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,811
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12536748
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jerseydevious/pseuds/jerseydevious
Summary: Jason has an argument with Bruce. If it can be called an argument.... If it can be calledBruce.





	The Wise Men of Gotham

**Author's Note:**

> I know I've been slacking when it comes to the Halloween fics, I'm just having a lot of trouble writing recently, and my life's been hectic lately. But I wrote this on October 1st, because I knew for a fact that I wanted to tell all of you my pet theory for the Batman Who Laughs and his pack of Monster Robins, before that comic comes along and just ruins my fun. So. Here we are, at this very terrible juncture. Don't read this if you don't do nastiness, because, I mean, the Batman Who Laughs was intended to be a fusion of Batman and the Joker, he's terrible by nature

It was not unlike waking from a dream—an inexorable slide to the surface. _I wonder if I've got any bagels left,_ he thought. _And that garden vegetable cream cheese. Jesus, I need to clean this place, it smells like—_

 

His eyes snapped open, and he rushed to his feet. The wall in front of him was mildewed, water-stained, peeling and crawling with clicking roaches; the smell was like something had died a few years ago, and its body had simply rotted into the floorboards, the walls, the ceiling, impossible to ever scrub it out. A hum ran through the walls, like the whole place was being powered by a generator, but it was more ominous than that, more like the distant sound of moaning. The whole place seemed to breathe.

 

“Good morning.”

 

“Bruce,” Jason growled. Trust Bruce to find the creepiest possible place to abduct him to. “What in the sweet shit did you drag me here for? I feel like I'm trapped on the set of an 80s horror movie, can we please go somewhere with air conditioning that doesn't smell like—Jesus, what is even wrong with you. The whole world's burning and you wasted time dragging me to precisely Shitfuck, Hellhouse, Hopefully North America. Last I heard, nobody was hearing anything from you.”

 

A low chuckle shook the rafters, because it wasn't enough to apparently drug him, he had to also be creepy as a motherfucker. "We're in Arkham."

 

Jason raised a brow, appraising the little hallway he was sitting in; one swinging lightbulb splashing them with greenish-yellowish light, darkness crowding them in from every side, ceilings stripped bare of paneling, walls crumbling here and there to reveal the warped skeleton beneath. "How many, uh, donations have you been skipping, exactly."

 

“None,” Bruce rumbled, shifting. A thin trail of dust rained down from the ceiling, and the whole building seemed to groan. “What you’re looking is only what people think of Arkham. Reality itself, bent around the mind. People are scared of what they don't know, and nothing's less known about than what Arkham is on the inside.”

 

“That what’s happening to Gotham?” Jason asked. _Reality itself, bent around the mind._ Maybe there was a reason Bruce was clinging to the dark. “It’s becoming what people think of it?”

 

Bruce laughed, then, unexpectedly—a deep, rolling sound, not unlike thunder, not unlike the sound a beast would make rising from its slumber.

 

Jason frowned beneath his helmet. This was getting weird, fast. “You’re in a good mood.”

 

“A home for goats,” Bruce said, between the chuckles. He moved a bit, the light swinging with him—Jason wondered who, exactly, had decided Arkham had no ceilings, or if that was supposed to be somehow symbolic. “That’s what Gotham meant, when it was first used in England. There's another town named Gotham, in Nottinghamshire. It's known for its stories of the Wise Men of Gotham—when a royal highway was about to be built through their village, they acted mad. Since madness was seen as contagious, the highway was never built. Madness protected their city.”

 

“Oh, I’m fascinated,” Jason said, dryly. “Look, I get you’re not the most normal person the world’s ever seen, but can I level with you? The hiding-in-the-ceiling shit, in-a-horrifyingly-decrepit-murder-house shit, that’s got to stop. Get down from there, you fucking lunatic.”

 

Bruce leaned forward, wood creaking beneath him. Instead of the eyes shining from the dark—white, implacable, unfeeling—he saw the glint of yellow, gnarled teeth, jutting out like shards of snapped wood. Jason's stomach bottomed out, and he stumbled backward. 

 

“Boys,” Bruce said, the grin stretching impossibly wider. “Could you get a chair for our guest.”

 

There was shrieking, and then four monsters dropped from the shadows—Robins, all of them, with white faces and curly green hair and hellish, sharpened fangs to match the one that leered at him from the shadows. Jason blocked one, and it wrapped its arms around him and sank its teeth into his hand. Another one dove gums-deep into calf, and the other two, with fiendish strength, wrestled him into a chair he hadn’t even known had been there. Jason fought them, but he felt weak—weak as a kitten—

 

“You’ve heard of komodo dragons, yes,” the grin said, glittering. “Same concept, different poison. You won’t be able to move. It’s temporary, only lasts a bit, but it’s enough for this.”

 

The grin disappeared, and then Bruce had leapt out of the darkness, landing with his head bowed on the rotting floor in front of Jason. The nightmarish Robins scuttled to his side, chirping something indistinct _—crow,_ it sounded like. One wrapped around his leg, and Bruce buried a clawed hand in his hair, stroking, one crawled up his back and sat on his shoulders, another swung up on his arm and perched on it like a bird, and the last curled in front of him, at his feet, snarling around his horrible grin, spit dribbling out of the corner of his lip. They all had the same pale, chalk-white skin, the tattered and blood-stained Robin costume, dried blood and gore over their talons—around their mouths—

 

But that, all of that, was second to Bruce, the epicenter of the macabre—bone-white skin that appeared ready to crack and slough off the muscle beneath, grin pulled wide as if pinned back, red, bleeding gums, spikes affixed over his eyes—a mockery of—of—

 

Jason forced himself to look. “Who are you,” he growled.

 

The Robin at Bruce’s feet swiped its claws at him, like a cat.  “Very good, chum,” Bruce said, voice dripping with gut-sickening sweetness, and he bent to affix a chain to the collars—fucking  _ collars— _ each Robin was wearing. 

 

“What the hell is this,” Jason said, voice cracking against his will. It was like cold oil had been poured into his gut, and fear—a familiar breed—tickled his spine. He couldn’t stop feeling metal against bone, and that laughter, that godforsaken, motherfucking  _ laughter.  _ " Who the hell _ are you?" _

 

Bruce hooked the chain that connected the Robins to the wall, like they were slavering, rabid dogs. “I hate keeping them all tied up, but they used to devour everyone I spoke to. Hard to make friends that way. And I...”

 

Bruce gestured broadly at himself. "I'm the punchline."

 

Bruce—hard to call a creature so horrendous _Bruce—_ knelt in front of him, cocking his head like a curious owl. His skin was cracked, raw, infected, in the lines of his smile. The corners of his mouth softened, as he looked at Jason. He raised a clawed hand, stroking over Jason’s helmet. His touch was light. Delicate.

 

“You are so… old, in this world,” Bruce rumbled, and the hideous smile fell from his face, turning into what seemed to be open wonder. “I have never gotten to see you grow up, before. The helmet is a nice touch, I have to say. The perfect picture of damnation, Jason Todd, the Red Hood. The man Batman failed to save, the son Bruce failed to rescue, together in one—perfect—picture.”

 

“What is this,” Jason snarled. “Who the—who the hell are you—let me  _ go—" _

 

Bruce’s fingers hooked under the helmet, and slid it over his head. He laughed, this time a loud, shrill sound. “A mask under the mask—oh, I’ve missed you. I’ve missed you a lot.”

 

His fingers were cold and clammy as he fumbled with the edge of the domino, sharp, hardened nails cutting into Jason's skin. When he peeled it back, revealing Jason’s face, his grin seemed to stretch to his ears, and he took Jason’s chin in hand, tilting his head back and forth.

 

One of the Robins crooned in jealousy. “My son,” Bruce purred. “My son. You look good. Maybe you should sleep some more, but you look good. When I found you, you know, there was a six-inch bit of glass right—” Bruce tapped the space beneath Jason's eye with a claw, "—here. And I remember thinking that I would watch my parents die ten times, twenty times, a hundred times, to make that bit of glass and that cut disappear."

 

If he’d been able, he would have reared away, he would’ve kicked every one of those ghastly teeth in, he would’ve done anything, anything but sit quietly. As it were, he had only one power: “Fuck off,” Jason snapped. If only he could get close enough to bite Bruce’s hand. If it could be called _Bruce._

 

Bruce laughed again, and it was lower, softer. “That’s the boy I know.”

 

“I’ve heard so much about you,” Bruce said, taking one of Jason’s numb hands in his own. Jason wanted to cut his arm off. "The Jason who cheated death. The one who came back with a grudge. The one who is unstoppable."

 

Jason closed his eyes; his face, he could feel, but he couldn't seemed to twist his neck. “Let go of me.”

 

“Never,” Bruce hissed. “Don’t even think a thing like that. If I let you go, where would they be?” He gestured to the demonic Robins, one of which was gnawing on the other’s arm. There was no blood in their flesh, just cold, nonliving meat, that seemed to stitch itself together as fast as it could be chewed. Chunks of pale pink muscle slid out of the corner of the Robin’s mouth, in a rope of slobber.

 

“What do you mean,” Jason said. “What the—what the fuck do you mean. Start talking, you son of bitch.”

 

“Ha! You're brave, for a paralyzed man. But that was always the Jason I knew. I’ll tell you,” Bruce said, teeth clicking together as he spoke. “I’ll tell you in a bit. Just let me… look.”

 

“Stop it. Stop looking at me. Let me go, I don’t, I don’t—" Jason stopped. "Punchline. What did you mean by punchline."

 

This was the man that had raised him. It wasn’t possible. It couldn’t have been real, it had to be fake, a sham, just like Arkham—

 

“I  _ never _ get to see you grow old,” Bruce whined. “I thought I’d take my time, enjoy it. But I never say no to this joke."

 

Bruce leaned forward. "See, you have this man. And he thinks he knows exactly what he stands for. He thinks that a justifiable homicide would turn him into a unrepentant killer, so he stops himself, before he crosses that line. This man has a son, and that son gets beaten to death with a crowbar. This man, he breaks his code, and he becomes an unrepentant killer."

 

Bruce shrieked with inhuman, awful laughter. "But it's not—it's not because he broke his own rules! No, no, it's because the Joker hid a gas bomb in his stomach, dosing whoever killed him with Joker venom. Incurable. Oh, it kills me every time. Quite literally."

 

Jason closed his eyes, his chest clenching with undefinable feeling; yet, even in the face of this, he couldn't help but think  _there was a Bruce who killed the Joker after all. There was a Bruce who killed the Joker after all._

 

The corners of Bruce’s mouth turned upwards. “I have a present. And an offer, but present first. Just wait here _—_ _ ha! _ Not that you can move.”

 

Bruce stood, something antsy in the way he moved that would look like excitement on anyone else, and drug a gleaming silver trash can out of the shadows of the hallway, kicking it out onto the floor. The lid toppled off, and bloated bags of purplish red guts slid out, spreading in a pool over the floor. The Robins strained at their leashes to get a bite of the flesh, and Bruce headed them off with his boot. 

 

“No. Those are for your brother, you had three security guards earlier. Though,” Bruce paused, and with a giggle, said, “that looked like the most they’ve had in a while. Right, boys?”

 

The Robins cackled with him. Bruce tousled one’s head affectionately, and turned back to Jason, opening his arms to the gory display pooling on the ground. Flies were whizzing in a thin roar around them. 

 

“A gift! From me, to you,” Bruce said. “Can you guess what it is?”

 

“No,” Jason said, dully. The sight didn't bother him as much as it should have, he knew; but he'd been seeing heart-rending violence since he was sixteen. It was hard to summon the urge to vomit at a few displaced organs, when he'd cut off a few heads himself.

 

“He’s speechless,” Bruce stage-whispered to the Robins, and he marched through the guts—blood spattering his black boots—to lean beside Jason. “These belong to Batman.”

 

“No,” Jason whispered, something ugly, raw, poisonous sliding up his throat; _now,_ now he felt horror, now he felt terror.

 

“Not yours, of course. Another one’s, from a different world. I saved them especially for you,” Bruce said. Jason tried not to think about Bruce, another Bruce, one who still wore the cowl, pinned to the floor by Robins, disemboweled—

 

“But I could do it. For you, I could make it happen. What do you prefer—evisceration, dismemberment? Maybe a  _ classic, _ the vikings had a few good ideas. Decapitation? I’m a fan of that, myself,” Bruce said. His words came out in a rush, a hurry, a stampede. “But I could do it. In fact, I’d be happy to. Anything for you. It wouldn’t be that hard, even, I’d enjoy it. I know you want him dead as much as I do."

 

“If you do anything,” Jason hissed, "anything to hurt Batman? I take you, and I chop you into bits, and I feed ‘em to your little monsters over there. I'll make you scream, you hear me?”

 

For the first time, Bruce frowned. “I thought you hated him.”

 

_I don't, _ Jason thought. “It’s complicated,” Jason said.

 

“Oh, no, Jay, lad—I know this world. It’s not all that complicated. The Joker murdered you,  _ my  _ son,  _ dared _ to, and didn’t pay the price. You were, rightfully, outraged. You want Batman’s intestines strung up on Arkham’s gates as badly as I do, and that’s exactly what I can give you. Because everything he is, is useless everything I am. He wouldn't stand a chance.”

 

“Oh, really? And what’s so special about you? You’re a fucking lunatic? You broke every rule he has, you’ve done—God knows what—to those fucking kids?” Jason asked.

 

The grin curled again. “Oh, no, Jay. I didn’t do anything. That’s what the Joker did.”

 

“Crow! Crow! Crow!” the Robins cried—they seemed to know they were being spoken about.

 

Bruce swiveled the gleaming spikes until Jason was sure Bruce was staring him in the face, and then he said, “Bar.”

 

Jason’s heart froze over.

 

Bruce gazed at them, something like fondness coloring the half of his face that Jason could see. “There’s a spell, one I choked out of Constantine, before I dumped his body in the Atlantic. Raises the dead. So I brought my son to me. And when I discovered the other worlds, in the black underbelly of the universe I lived in, and other worlds where Batman had left his son dead, I… rescued them. As it would turn out, the bomb that killed you, there was Joker venom in it.”

 

Jason would have cried, if he could. “Zombies. You mean they’re fucking—zombies—fucking Jokerized zombies.” 

 

“They’re beautiful,” Bruce growled. “They’re your brothers, and you’ll be nice to them.”

 

“What have you done?” Jason whispered. 

 

Bruce’s hand wrapped around his shoulder. “The best I can for you, my son.”

 

_ “The best you— _ you deranged, sick motherfucker—"

 

Bruce cackled, spittle flying. He turned to the Robins, who chittered and scrambled on top of each other to reach him. “Boys, I think he’s coming around.”

 

“Let me tell you something,” Jason spat. “You’re nothing to me, you hear? You’re some half-assed broken copy of the man that raised me.”

 

Bruce flinched. Actually, bodily flinched, jerking backward as if a snake had struck at him, and his monstrous mouth curled downwards in a scowl. Almost, almost, he looked like the Batman he knew, and that might just have been the most terrifying thought.

 

“I would have given you the world,” Bruce said, breath shuddering, voice low and halting, “if you had just asked for it.”

 

Jason snorted. “I don’t want anything from you, freak.”

 

Bruce reached into his pocket, pulling out a deck of shimmering cards, with silver, razor-sharp edges. The grin crawled back across his face. He twirled the cards between his fingers. “Oh, Jay, Jay, Jay.”

 

He leaned over, pressing one silver card to Jason’s throat. “I don’t think, son, you have much of a choice," he whispered, into Jason’s ear. "Reality, bent around the mind. Whose mind did you think I was talking about?” 

**Author's Note:**

> I feel like "the Monster Robins are the zombified corpses of Jason Todds taken from various collapsing worlds within the Dark Multiverse" is like, the magnum opus of horrible Batman theories. The Final Pam of horrible Batman theories. Evil Alfred, Batman Secretly Killed His Own Parents, both of you need to step aside. There's a new sheriff in town, her name is JD, and she's _awful_


End file.
